Chen Wenbo

Purple Gold, 2019, oil on canvas, 200 × 150 cm × 3

Chen Wenbo’s paintings, marked by a distinctly personal style, reinterpret familiar yet estranged objects. His compositions are bright and rounded, with magnified forms rendered in crisp, hyper-detailed clarity. Soft highlights lend the works an almost hallucinating visual effect. By borrowing techniques from commercial photography and advertising, he creates a richly “super-realist” aesthetic.

More importantly, inspired by film noir, Chen is adept at constructing a sense of suspense within his images. He infuses inanimate objects with a spirit or inner psyche, giving them an uncanny presence. Once endowed with this sense of agency, the objects generate an unresolved, gripping tension that irresistibly draws viewers in—sparking curiosity tinged with unease. The effect is akin to the “MacGuffin” in Hitchcock’s thrillers, an enigmatic element that drives the narrative forward while deepening the mystery.